Removing More Digital Banking Barriers

The work of nCino teams such as the one shown above has enabled the fintech firm to expand and enhance its Bank Operating System. The latest addition is a customer onboarding program. (Photo courtesy of nCino)

Online and mobile banking isn’t convenient if the processes don’t work well. That reality prompted the development of a new component for nCino’s Bank Operating System.

The Wilmington financial technology company announced in mid-November the launch of its Enterprise Onboarding solution, which the company terms a “significant enhancement” to its Bank Operating System. It aims to create an easy, welcoming experience for new customers or even for existing customers wanting to expand their relationship with a bank.

“The new solution centralizes and streamlines the entire new customer onboarding process through account opening, loan origination and beyond, to offer a consistent digital experience across all product lines and channels for financial institutions and their customers,” the release stated.

Quoting the 2017 Digital Banking Report, the release stated that less than 50 percent of financial institutions today have a structured digital way to enroll new customers or enable existing customers to open new accounts. Customers trying to open a new account online abandon their efforts up to 90 percent of the time because the process is so lengthy and complex.

“nCino’s new Enterprise Onboarding solution eliminates disconnected, manual processes in favor of a single solution that integrates and automates processes and provides complete transparency across business lines,” nCino’s release stated. “This solution helps bankers better understand their customers, anticipate their needs and offer recommended products and services, leading to higher retention rates and greater profitability. For the customer, nCino enables them to interact with their financial institutions in the way they want – whether in-branch or on a mobile device – and at any time, leading to improved satisfaction rates.”

While nCino’s Bank Operating System is a cloud-based platform, not all banks have yet embraced the cloud.

And because online and mobile services are best supported by cloud technology, the disconnect is one reason that existing banking digital processes may be frustrating to users, experts say.

“Although online banking has been around for a while now, it has tended to be via the use of the PC and primarily during the evening,” wrote David Trossell and Graham Jarvis for Information Age in May of this year. “Now, however, people expect to transact multiple times a day at any time during the day with mobile banking and payments. This, in turn, has led to changes in how these services are provided by banks.

Financial institutions’ reluctance to embrace the cloud was detailed in a report published Nov. 5 by consulting and professional services firm Accenture.

Its survey of 35 executives from top global banks of varying sizes found that “many players still lack a comprehensive strategy for cloud adoption. Of the banks surveyed, 43 percent have no cloud strategy or have only started implementing basic cloud practices. Sixty-three percent have no road map with key performance indicators to measure progress to cloud.”

Strategic plans that lack a cloud strategy and comprehensive plan are missing a key component, Accenture’s report stated, adding that cloud capabilities are now “fundamental” to how banks will grow in the future.

“A clear cloud strategy and plan, developed in collaboration with the business units, sets priorities for adding new cloud-based applications and transferring existing ones to cloud platforms to give the organization greater flexibility and efficiency and enable innovation and growth,” the report stated.

Increasingly, customers expect digital interactions with their financial institution to be smooth and easy to understand, according to Aite Group’s retail banking senior analyst Tiffani Montez.

“Given customers’ rapidly rising expectations for digital banking experiences to match the integrated experiences they receive in other industries, financial institutions are under pressure to deliver a customer- centric, digital-first experience that is integrated and flexible enough to engage with customers when they want, how they want, and where they want,” Montez said in the nCino release.

“As the number of digital banking users grows, it will become increasingly important for financial institutions to build personalized experiences that allow them to deliver customized product recommendations, simplify the account-opening process, allow a customer to apply for multiple products at one time, assist a customer with account features, and help customers meet their financial goals in a digital environment,” she added.

nCino was built on the premise that financial institutions would move to cloud technology.

“All of our more than 200 customers worldwide have moved to the cloud,” said company spokeswoman Natalia Moose. “It’s safe to say that the initial concerns or skepticism we faced when we first started nCino have largely been erased. Today, it’s not so much a question of if a financial institution should move to the cloud but when.”